


Not One of the Big People

by kathkin



Series: A Few Notes in the Song of Creation (a Lord of the Rings Dæmon AU) [10]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 10:10:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14871770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathkin/pseuds/kathkin
Summary: “I didn’t want to say earlier,” Frodo said, “but whatever he was, he didn’t have a dæmon.”





	Not One of the Big People

**Author's Note:**

> a) Wikipedia on [dæmons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A6mon_\(His_Dark_Materials\)).
> 
> b) [Ground rules for this AU](http://penny-anna.tumblr.com/post/174266827343/ground-rules-for-d%C3%A6mon-au).
> 
> c) See end notes for dæmon key!

“ _Not_ one of the Big People,” said Frodo.

“You sound awfully sure,” said Pippin. His dæmon Windflower lounged in his lap in the shape of a contented rabbit, and he stroked her idly.

“I’m certain of it,” said Frodo.

“Why?” said Fatty.

For a moment Frodo wondered if he ought to tell them just _why_. He could see that they all felt safe, and secure now that they were in Crickhollow. Out of the woods, in both the literal and figurative sense. They didn’t all know what he knew, and they certainly hadn’t seen what he’d seen. He didn’t want to scare them.

Perhaps they could all benefit from being a bit more scared. But he hesitated.

Gentian, perched just above his ear, murmured, “tell them.”

“I didn’t want to say earlier,” Frodo said, “but whatever he was, he didn’t have a dæmon.”

A shudder ran through the warm room. With a whine of fear Sam’s Harebell scrambled clumsily onto his lap, into his open arms. Windflower turned in the blink of an eye into a mouse and hid inside Pippin’s waistcoat pocket. Beryl, Fatty’s pigeon-dæmon, leapt from the table to his shoulder and huddled in close to his face. Even Grumpy, usually the boldest amongst them, hid herself under Merry’s chair.

“You mean – the way Gandalf doesn’t have a dæmon?” said Pippin, the rational part of him, the part that _knew_ it shouldn’t, _couldn’t_ be true, trying to argue out of the vile reality.

“Not like that,” said Merry, his face grim.

Frodo was used to folks without dæmons, more so than any of them. There was Gandalf, of course, who made not having a dæmon seem the most natural thing in the world. And there were Bilbo’s dwarven friends.

Dwarves had no dæmons. Once upon a time that had frightened him, but Bilbo had set him straight quickly enough. “Dwarves are a practical people, Frodo my lad,” he’d said. “They keep their dæmons safe on the inside.”

It was a difficult concept to get your head around, and easy to fall into the trap of thinking of Dwarves as having dæmons that were somewhere else, somewhere you couldn’t see. Far away or invisible, but not altogether absent. The reality, that Dwarves and Elves and all others like them, were whole, entire beings without any need for a dæmon, had taken Frodo a good few years to understand. But he _had_ come to understand it – or he’d thought he had.

What he’d seen in the woods had taught him otherwise. He understood now, truly understood, the difference between the having and not having of a dæmon.

If an Dwarf or an Elf was like someone wearing a mask, the Black Rider had been like someone whose face had been ripped away, and… _messily_ so. He hadn’t merely not had a dæmon; he’d had a palpable absence of dæmon, a sucking, desperate, yearning space in the air beside and around him.

Outside in the woods, he could never have described it, had hardly dared think of it. But indoors and safe – as close to safe as could be – he tried to put what he had seen into words. When he was done, Fatty had grown pale. Sam had dug his fingers into Harebell’s reddish fur, his knuckles white, his jaw very tight. Pippin looked as if he were about to throw up.

Merry was the first to speak. “I think,” he said, “it’s high time you opened up about what’s really going on here.”

**Author's Note:**

> Dæmons in this fic:
> 
> **Pippin and Windflower:** unsettled.  
>  **Frodo and Gentian:** [pale tussock moth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calliteara_pudibunda#/media/File:Calliteara_pudibunda.jpg).  
>  **Sam and Harebell:** [red cocker spaniel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bojars%27s_english_cocker_spaniel.jpg).  
>  **Merry and Celandine ("Grumpy"):** [red fox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fox_-_British_Wildlife_Centre_\(17429406401\).jpg).  
>  **Fatty and Beryl:** common pigeon.


End file.
